PCM claim form, Ticketed in my own space!

Fruitcake

jw505 wrote: »

this (I was the driver in this event and only named driver on the car insurance). How should I retract that part of the defence or address this in witness statement?

Other people can drive a car with the owner's permission. As C-m says, perhaps you didn't realise until later that it was you who had been driving on the date in question, or perhaps you were so confused about receiving the court claim that it wasn't until later you realised nobody else could have driven it that day so it must have been you.

jw505

My draft WS below. I assume it needs quite some corrections as English is not my first language and I realise legal language is definitely even harder... (I couldn't understand clearly lots of the sentences...) So your help is really needed and much appreciated!!

In the County Court at XXXXXXXX
Claim No.
Between

Parking Control Management v XXXXX (Claimant)

and

MR XXXXXX (Defendant)


WITNESS STATEMENT
1. I am XXXX, the defendant in this matter and the leaseholder of parking bay XX where the vehicle with the registration XXXX was parked in the parking bay XX on XX/XX/XXXX. I currently reside at XXXX.
2. In January 2015, I purchased the property and became the leaseholder of the property and its allocated parking bay XX, as detailed in my Lease. Section X.XX of the Lease covers my covenants with regards to parking in an allocated bay, and does not include a requirement to display a permit. A permit was displayed purely as a courtesy to facilitate the job of the Claimant's operatives. I attached the lease agreement as Exhibit JW01.
3. On 22/09/16k, I came back from work, and parked my vehicle in the allocated bay in accordance with the terms of the Lease. A parking permit was in fact fully displayed in the car during the event but was slipped onto the seat.
4. The next morning I received a parking charge notice (PCN) from the Claimant on the reason of “Parked without clearly displaying a valid PCM UK Ltd permit (at time of enforcement)”. The Claimant based the claim on a photo from an angled view though the windscreen, not showing the inside of the car, and carefully avoiding a seat view.
5. Upon receipt of the PCN from the Claimant, I appealed the PCN explaining I was a resident there and parked in my allocated bay according to my lease terms, and the permit was displayed in the car only slipped onto the seat. The Claimant have avoided any communications and continued to litigation. I retract the driver statement part of my defence as I realise on that occasion I was the driver.
6. The Claimant, as a third party non-landowner operator, cannot re-offer parking terms with different (far more onerous) and chargeable terms, because I already have that right to park within my lease agreement and the bay is allocated to me. The Claimant have not addressed my primacy of contract as a resident and paid no regard at all to my rights and easements.
7. Recent cases have set clear precedence that my Lease has primacy of contract over any signage that the Claimant puts up as per judgements in B9GF0A9E Jopson v Homeguard [2016], C6GF14F0 Pace vs Mr N - [2016] and C7GF50J7 Link Parking v Ms P [2016].

8. In B9GF0A9E Jopson v Homeguard [2016], the exact question regarding terms in a lease was tested at Oxford County Court on 29/9/2016. The Jopson case is a persuasive decision, where Senior Circuit Judge HHJ Charles Harris QC found that Home Guard had acted unreasonably when issuing a penalty charge notice to Miss Jopson, a resident of a block of flats.
9. In the parking service enforcement authorisation document provided by the Claimant, the landowner authority is not signed by any landowning party (it's neither the freeholder, nor anyone identified as authorised to act for the freeholder, nor their legal advisers, nor is it the leaseholder - me). There is no evidence that any party with title in the land, who could be described as the 'landholder' (in possession) signed this in 2012.
10. The parking service enforcement authorisation document also requires PCM to abide by the BPA CoP. But PCM left the BPA to hop to the IPC for an easier appeals system skewed heavily in their favour, on 01/04/2014. Therefore the Claimant is arguably in breach of their alleged 'landowner contract' that is out of date.
11. The landowner authority (even if the Court finds it acceptable) only provides for enforcement rules summarised as 'permit parking in allocated bays'. I did not contravene that term, which is silent about if a driver of a car must display their permission. The Claimant have added their own words to the sign that are unsupported by the signatory (whoever they may be). Therefore there is no 'legitimate interest' in pursuing the charge and using the tests applied in the ParkingEye v Beavis case, the lack of commercial justification here, renders this an 'unrecoverable and unconscionable penalty' set to punish an authorised driver for a permit slipping.
12. The Beavis case decision said a charge CANNOT be levied just to punish a driver, because that (unlike the complex and fact-specific charge in Beavis which was about a retail car park) falls foul of Lord Denning's four tests for a penalty. And it was also said in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage in profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. Thus, there can be no 'damages' or 'loss' (as this Claimant is trying to make up, whether it was on the sign or not) to pile on top of any parking charge, and the Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this industry's repeated abuse of this fundamental point.

Coupon-mad

Change this:

A permit was displayed purely as a courtesy to facilitate the job of the Claimant's operatives.

to this:

A permit was displayed purely as a courtesy to show other residents that I was not a trespasser. There was no 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' with any third party as far as I was aware. Certainly I had no reason to expect the parking firm to start targeting residents with penalties, but that is exactly what they have done at this site and it is causing misery and pays no regard to residents' primacy of contract under their leases.

And change this, as you do NOT know when it slipped; IMHO it is far more likely the 'rogue' ticketing person caused it, than you:

3. On 22/09/16k, I came back from work, and parked my vehicle in the allocated bay in accordance with the terms of the Lease. A parking permit was in fact fully displayed in the car during the event but was slipped onto the seat.

Change it to:

3. On 22/09/16, I came back from work, and parked my vehicle in the allocated bay in accordance with the terms of the Lease. A parking permit was in fact fully displayed in the car when I left it, but at some unknown point in time later, it somehow slipped onto the seat, which was likely caused by the Claimant's own operative leaning on the residents' cars and pushing between them. This is possible, given the Claimant is an ex-clamper firm where such conduct (rocking cars or blowing through vents top dislodge permits) was rife before clamps were criminalised in 2012. PCM were well known for it, my research tells me now, and they were exposed more recently on Watchdog as a rogue trader, the likes of whom should never be around residents' cars. The point is, I parked my car and I displayed my permit as usual, and at no point agreed to pay a rogue ex clamping firm an unconscionable penalty to park at my own home.

And add to this:

I retract the misunderstanding in my defence where I thought it was an occasion when I didn't park the car, as I realise on that occasion I was the driver. I accept this, now I have seen that PCM are talking about the event when I appealed to them and had parked the car - with the permit displayed when I left it - and in my appeal, I showed them proof of my permit in good faith. I thought that unfair PCN had been cancelled many months ago, given the lack of any legitimate interest in penalising known permitted residents.

jw505

Thanks very much, Coupon-Mad. I will change it accordingly. really appreciated!!
anything I need to add? perhaps expenses?

Coupon-mad

Your costs schedule is separate (see newbies thread for examples!) but you can certainly include a draft of it in this file, with the WS and evidence and a contents page.

jw505

Draft before sending tomorrow first thing:

In the County Court at @@@@@
Claim No. @@@@@
Between

Parking Control Management (UK) Limited (Claimant)

and

@@@@@ (Defendant)


WITNESS STATEMENT
1. I am @@@@@, the defendant in this matter and the leaseholder of parking bay @@ where the vehicle with the registration @@@@ was parked in the parking bay @@@@ on @@@. I currently reside at @@@@.
2. In January 2015, I purchased the property @@@@@ and became the leaseholder of the property and its allocated parking bay @@@@ as detailed in my Lease. The Section Third Schedule – Clause 1 and 5 of the Lease covers my covenants with regards to parking in an allocated bay, and does not include a requirement to display a permit. A permit was displayed purely as a courtesy to show other residents that I was not a trespasser. There was no 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' with any third party as far as I was aware. Certainly, I had no reason to expect the parking firm to start targeting residents with penalties, but that is exactly what they have done at this site and it is causing misery and pays no regard to residents' primacy of contract under their leases. I attached the lease agreement as Exhibit @@01, land register document and purchase record as Exhibit @@02.
3. On 22/09/16, I came back from work, and parked my vehicle in the allocated bay in accordance with the terms of the Lease. A parking permit was in fact fully displayed in the car when I left it, but at some unknown point in time later, it somehow slipped onto the seat, which was likely caused by the Claimant's own operative leaning on the residents' cars and pushing between them. This is possible, given the Claimant is an ex-clamper firm where such conduct (rocking cars or blowing through vents top dislodge permits) was rife before clamps were criminalised in 2012. PCM were well known for it, my research tells me now, and they were exposed more recently on Watchdog as a rogue trader, the likes of whom should never be around residents' cars. The point is, I parked my car and I displayed my permit as usual, and at no point agreed to pay a rogue ex clamping firm an unconscionable penalty to park at my own home.
4. The next morning I received a parking charge notice (PCN) from the Claimant on the reason of “Parked without clearly displaying a valid PCM UK Ltd permit (at time of enforcement)”. The Claimant based the claim on a photo from an angled view though the windscreen, not showing the inside of the car, and carefully avoiding a seat view.
5. Upon receipt of the PCN from the Claimant, I appealed the PCN explaining I was a resident there and parked in my allocated bay according to my lease terms, and the permit was displayed in the car. The Claimant have avoided any communications and continued to litigation. I retract the misunderstanding in my defence where I thought it was an occasion when I didn't park the car, as I realise on that occasion I was the driver. I accept this, now I have seen that PCM are talking about the event when I appealed to them and had parked the car - with the permit displayed when I left it - and in my appeal, I showed them proof of my permit in good faith. I thought that unfair PCN had been cancelled many months ago, given the lack of any legitimate interest in penalising known permitted residents.
6. The Claimant, as a third party non-landowner operator, cannot re-offer parking terms with different (far more onerous) and chargeable terms, because I already have that right to park within my lease agreement and the bay is allocated to me. The Claimant have not addressed my primacy of contract as a resident and paid no regard at all to my rights and easements.
7. Recent cases have set clear precedence that my Lease has primacy of contract over any signage that the Claimant puts up as per judgements in B9GF0A9E Jopson v Homeguard [2016], C6GF14F0 Pace vs Mr N - [2016] and C7GF50J7 Link Parking v Ms P [2016].

8. In B9GF0A9E Jopson v Homeguard [2016], the exact question regarding terms in a lease was tested at Oxford County Court on 29/9/2016. The Jopson case is a persuasive decision, where Senior Circuit Judge HHJ Charles Harris QC found that Home Guard had acted unreasonably when issuing a penalty charge notice to Miss Jopson, a resident of a block of flats.
9. In the parking service enforcement authorisation document provided by the Claimant, the landowner authority is not signed by any landowning party (it's neither the freeholder, nor anyone identified as authorised to act for the freeholder, nor their legal advisers, nor is it the leaseholder - me). There is no evidence that any party with title in the land, who could be described as the 'landholder' (in possession) signed this in 2012.
10. The parking service enforcement authorisation document also requires PCM to abide by the BPA CoP. But PCM left the BPA to hop to the IPC for an easier appeals system skewed heavily in their favour, on 01/04/2014. Therefore the Claimant is arguably in breach of their alleged 'landowner contract' that is out of date.
11. The landowner authority (even if the Court finds it acceptable) only provides for enforcement rules summarised as 'permit parking in allocated bays'. I did not contravene that term, which is silent about if a driver of a car must display their permission. The Claimant have added their own words to the sign that are unsupported by the signatory (whoever they may be). Therefore there is no 'legitimate interest' in pursuing the charge and using the tests applied in the ParkingEye v Beavis case, the lack of commercial justification here, renders this an 'unrecoverable and unconscionable penalty' set to punish an authorised driver for a permit slipping.
12. The Beavis case decision said a charge CANNOT be levied just to punish a driver, because that (unlike the complex and fact-specific charge in Beavis which was about a retail car park) falls foul of Lord Denning's four tests for a penalty. And it was also said in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage in profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. Thus, there can be no 'damages' or 'loss' (as this Claimant is trying to make up, whether it was on the sign or not) to pile on top of any parking charge, and the Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this industry's repeated abuse of this fundamental point.
13. The Court is invited to dismiss the claim and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.

I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.

Signature of Defendant:



Name:
Date

jw505

heading to court appointment tomorrow morning, beside prepare the 1-page counterclaim of costs, is there anything I should emphasise or avoid talking about? anything else I should prepare?

very nervous now....

DoaM

It's not a counter claim of costs - that would cost you money. It's a Costs Schedule ... best to have the right terminology in your mind.

KeithP

jw505 wrote: »

very nervous now....

Have you seen this video?...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n93eoaxhzpU

jw505

heading to the court now....

wish me luck .....